We have ideas about who and what God is but for most God is someone to turn to for help, comfort, and in difficult times. Essentially if our image of God is not "perfectly good" it is at least somewhat good. This can create a difficult situation when we are asking for God's help when we know our own errors or self-centered choices have contributed to the challenges we are wanting to talk to God about. We often feel we don't deserve help from a "good God" even if circumstances are wholly not of our own making.

But God does not have the same perspective: God loves us, longs for us to be blessed and have love and joy and purpose in our lives. God seeks to meet us where we are to demonstrate God's trustworthiness, capacity to help and abiding love because of who God is rather than because of who we are. In other words, God loves because God is love and God loves us where and how we are even now. After we have fallen in love with God, then we are ready to learn how to build a better God-centric life.

So when I'm feeling unlovable or unredeemably broken, it helps me to remember that I am created in the image of God. The best parts of me, my capacity to love and be loved, for kindness and compassion, for courage and joy are reflections of characteristics of God.

​I can affirm with confidence and hope: I AM CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD.

Genesis 1:27 God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them.

Do you ever get something running through your head that just won't quit? Oh, getting a song stuck is irksome, but I'm thinking more about chewing something over and over again. It could be the actions of another that caused pain, anxiety or anger. It could be a problem that needs to be faced. It could be a deep sense of shame, either appropriate or inappropriate. It dogs us during the day and plagues us at night. It can lead to insomnia, addiction and broken lives. Obsession is not God's hope for us.

As we yield to God's wooing, God's calling, God's counsel and advice we begin to be calmed, assured, to be confident and hopeful. We begin to be able to think about things rather than being caught in an abyss of fear and distress and hopelessness.

Here is a good question when I need to make a decision: What are the voices in my head saying?

Do they repeat the worst that has been said to my by the World? Things like, "I'm a mess. I don't deserve good things. When challenges arise it is proof I'm a bad person, God does not care about me. I'm too insignificant for a god if there is a god to care about me. I always ruin things. I'm too broken to be loved. I never get anything right." I'm do not understand why we are so quick to believe the worst about ourselves, but we are too often uncomfortable affirming our better selves and too quick to assume others are in some way "better"--not behaving better but "are better."

As we become acquainted with God we begin to see these lies for the trash they are. God does not create trash. Christ did not die for trash. God created us for a purpose, with natural abilities and with resources like family and community and education, and with challenges that will inform us and teach us that we might be loving to God's other sons and daughters.

If you find things running amok through your head I hope you will squeeze in a prayer. As you keep practicing it will become easier and will open your life to peace, wiser choices, more kindness given and received, and a new perspective. Peace will wash over obsession and love will overcome fear.

Slowly we can drown the habit of negative self-talk. We can affirm God's words to us, accept God's value of us. God sees you as worthy of the sacrifice of Jesus. There is no valid reason to see yourself as less than that.

​If you are struggling with this you might want to check out some of these things that God says about you, the daughter of the King of Kings:  1 John 4:4, 1 John 4:16, 1 John 5:3-4, 1 John 5:14-15, 2 Timothy 2:15; Psalm 139:13, Psalm 139:14, Ephesians 1:4, Ephesians 1:4, Mark 11:24 and hundreds of others. 

Just because I have done all I know to do to rely on God does not mean I don't make errors because I am wholly human and fallible. And this knowledge can sometimes threaten to overwhelm my persistent embrace of God's guidance. I am so grateful God loves so much, because I know I too often fail to trust God while trying to convince myself I'm trying to do the right thing.

In my heart of hearts I have such comfort and am so deeply encouraged when I dance in time with God's leading and love. Yet I get distracted by the shiny worries and buyer's remorse and the discouragement that the World whispers into my ear and the anxiety rises and the self-doubt expands.

But that term self-doubt is the heart of the issue. If I rely on my own wisdom and strength I am only sane to be worried silly about how things will turn out. But when I correctly rely on God's wisdom and strength I am filled with confidence, not in my own abilities but in Gods perfect love of me and ability to provide generously for me.

Maybe I'm asking God with such deep longing to move to a bigger house and God says, "Not yet!" And the next time I try to organize the closet or to find something I've carefully packed away, the temptation is great to feel discouraged and worried about the decision. Then something happens and we realize that what we were planning would have been something of a disaster and, by helping us wait God has gotten our finances where they need to be or the perfect lot has come on the market in a neighborhood that will provide blessings for years to come. The same thing happens in choosing a profession or finding employment or dealing with a health issue or any decision we face.

When tempted to gnaw on a decision carefully made, God welcomes my prayers ASKING for God's Will to be manifest in our lives and my prayers asking God to give me wisdom, patience, discernment, persistence and all the other capacities that will keep me from veering off course. After all, you cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it. (Matt. 6:27)

So the most responsible thing we can do is turn our back on worry and discouragement, trusting God's help and resting in the comfort that God's encouragement is ours for the taking.

I am SO confused. That has been my accurately identified condition when faced with change, demands for a response or considering how I should proceed. And I am perfectly capable of flailing around in that sad state for such an extended period I have begun to suspect I like the merry-go-round of hunkering down and wallowing around in self-pity and self-aggrandizement.  Ooh, poor me! My problems are the greatest of anyone ever!

I confess, my inner diva runs deep and wide when I let it run amok. 

But when I ask God for help I begin to see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel and begin to believe it might not be the headlight of a giant train coming at me. I begin to look forward with hope and sometimes even a frisson of anticipation to what amazing grace God is spreading before me.

I had a Bible study leader several years ago that said he found one consistent characteristic of finding the way God lead in answer to prayers for guidance. If he prayed and waited hopefully, God sent solutions or direction to him that he found were just better than he had been thinking up on his own. He did not comment on the length of time that had taken in his experience, but I find it varies. Therefore, when I feel confused I not only pray and seek the help of the Spirit of God in waiting hopefully, I also am aware that as long as I am clinging to the vestiges of confusion then I am simply not ready to hear much less act on the better option.

Ever loving God, send Your Holy Spirit to pour discernment into my decision-making process that I might confidently embrace this truth: My highest good is Your Will in my life and I can discard all fear, anxiety and self-focus as I look forward with confidence to You guiding me where I am to go. Thank you, God, for dispersing confusion and sending enlightenment. AMEN 

I believe that fear drives out love. I also believe it drives out peace, wisdom, kindness and good sense. Living in fear is miserable for the person mired in fear. It is also painful for those who love them to watch. We long to comfort, counsel and help but the more we push what we believe to be the best choices, the more our loved one flees "being controlled." This is particularly bitter when we see them being overly influenced by people who so clearly don't have our beloved's best interest at heart.

So as we consider how to act in response to the too often dangerous, destructive and depressing choices of those we love, we have decisions to make. If we help with too much money, we can undermine our beloved's confidence in being able to take care of themselves. If we offer advice instead of a listening heart, we can foster a relationship where it is hard to hear each other, much less be attentive to God's gentle nudges. If we try to protect our beloved we can make mistakes that have long memories and unintended consequences.

So how do we proceed. I think this has been a central issue in my life since I first feared for my beloved's life, quality of life and future. Here are some things I have learned.

When I trust God, I am assured that God has my beloved's best interest at heart...and both knows perfectly what is needed and has the capacity and willingness to provide what is needed. When I get focused on what "I" can do or what "I" can make happen, I am filled with fear. When I pray, search the Bible, consult with mature Christian friends and mentors, sing favorite hymns, to open myself to God's leading, I am at peace. When I am demanding answers and clamoring for an immediate solution where I know there can be none, I find myself awash with an internal dialog that leaves little time for prayer or even a realistic assessment of the situation.

In other words, God reassures me, while the World plays into me images of every possible horrible outcome leaving me too frightened to take any positive action.

All-knowing and all-powerful God, thank You for knowing what I need and what my loved ones need with perfect understanding and that You are already providing what they need. Send the Spirit of God to reassure me. In the name of Jesus I claim Your protection against doubt, fear and worry. Thank you for loving me so deeply and powerfully. AMEN 

An old hymn says, Jesus, Lead Thou On. But I am certain I have lead the Lord on many a mercy chase as I casually made choices and acted in ways that seems sensible and reasonable to me, based on my limited teenage brain. Frankly I've done it plenty over the decades since I turned 20!

But as I've experienced my share of skinned knees, shame for mistakes that harmed others and myself, and broke my heart through my own pigheadedness, I've become a bit more cautious and less impetuous.  Working with young offenders has impressed upon me the problems of a failure to consider the consequences of an action married to lack of impulse control. I want to weep when I see someone who is determined to keep doing the same foolish thing while expecting a different outcome because I know the lessons will continue to become more painful as the mistakes become more destructive.

So, assuming I've managed to not react in anger or self-righteous indignation or panic, and I have given myself permission to take time to consider my choices, what am I sensing?

God promises to lead us if we ask, demonstrating trust by listening and waiting. When I'm headed down the wrong path I often feel pushed -- pushed by my own greediness or fear, or the opinions of family or friends who want to make the choices for me, or by a culture that tells us such sweet lies. However, God speaks softly and kindly when I seek God's wisdom and keeps tugging at me if I start to wander off. The World shouts at us and lies to us and says things that are ridiculous on the face of it. I remember a friend saying, "I was mad at God for a long time for things I did to myself. I wasted a lot of time I could have been talking to God and building a different way of life." Been there, sister.

While we can't outrun God's love of us and we can't outrun Christ's sacrifice for us and we can't outrun the willingness of the Spirit of God to inform and instruct us in wisdom and grow our faith, we can wreck a LOT of damage to ourselves trying to outrun God.  My recommendation: stop right where you are and turn your face to God. God is longing to lead you to places of peace and wisdom and hope. God stands ready to calm your anxiety, to direct your feet on a path that blossoms into a life of purpose and hope and healing, to demonstrate God's trustworthiness in all circumstances. 

 Abiding God, Shalom! Still my anxious heart that I might hear You speaking wisdom and comfort into my ear. AMEN

I think it is good when I have some anxiety about a decision I am making. It means I am thinking about a response rather than indulging a reaction.

Of course when my beloved husband had a heart attack, I was responding as I was praying, but even at such a very frightening and distressing time (my late husband had died of sudden cardiac arrest 14 yeas earlier), I was able to function calmly and efficiently. When we arrived at the hospital there was plenty of waiting and no small sense of urgency as I notified family as far as 14 hours away and started family and friends praying. But through it all my praying habit brought blessing upon blessing. Over the coming days there were tears but no hysteria, anxious moments (really never fun to get a call from ICU at 3:30 a.m.) but no panic. I was convicted that God held us very tenderly in those challenging days, sending so many blessings.

And I have come to appreciate how consistently that, when I'm moving in response to God's Will, I have a sense of peace, calm and stillness. As soon as I start trying to rely on my own abilities and resources, I begin to feel rushed, panicky and awash in an irrational sense of urgency.

So, I take a deep breath, acknowledging God's presence in that moment, affirming or asking for God's guidance, tender care and wisdom. When I feel like a whirling dervish I know it is not the time to make a decision because it would be like throwing a bucket full of darts at a board -- no winning outcome and a big mess to clean up.

I have found help in asking myself: Do I really need to decide this right now?

If someone is rushing you to decide or declare or act "right now" be especially careful. That is so often an indication that they are acting without care and even with a desire to control you or stampede you into something they fear you will avoid if you have time to think about it. Sisters, we have all experienced this and seen this. Learn from it and practice being still, and choosing to pause and claim the promises of God our Savior. 

I used to tell my children that it was good for them to be afraid of rushing into traffic on a busy street because it was a dangerous thing to do and should only be attempted with thought and consideration of alternatives. This has been good advice for all my life. When you feel anxious about a course of action it may be God saying "Take care. Go slowly. Think ahead." and it may be God saying "Trust me even as you go ahead with this scary thing." Figuring out which it is can take time. Give yourself the gift of time when seeking the best choice for you." 

I was sitting in Bible class going over I don't know which Bible verses and suddenly I was filled with anxiety. What if I've gotten it all wrong? What if Satan could snatch me away at any moment I am not vigilant and ready to fight him? Then I started to calm down when I realized if that were my perspective my God was entirely too small to do any of the things the Bible says, and my own experience confirms, that God does.

God does not lose focus because God is attending the needs or prayers or praises of another of God's children. God does not for a moment leave us outside God's power and protection; even when we wander off, God stands focused and alert to our needs. God does not require us to remain vigilant, but only to trust in and affirm our relationship with God, even when we have to add, "God! Help my unbelief"* .

So how do so many people get off track in the work of making good choices? Is it crazy to volunteer to spend two years in the Peace Corp or is it courageous? Is it crazy to keep in contact with a loved one fighting addition or is it mercy in action? Is it crazy to take a lower paying job or start a business or be the "at home parent" when the financial risks are so great? I know of no verse in the Bible that would give us an easy or quick answer to any of those questions.

But there are some things that we understand. Over the next few days I'm going to be sharing my faith, hope and experience that helped me grow more confidently in making choices.

The first is both simple and complex: God never says, "Ignore the 10 commandments in this circumstance." I think of an extraordinarily kind and honorable young naval officer who failed to consider this basic litmus test and is serving a life sentence for murder because he falsely embraced the lie that it was the only way to protect his family. Now his family is wholly without his protection but he has come to trust they are in God's.

It is easy to say, "I have never murdered anyone" even when we know we have destroyed someone's reputation, shredded someone's self-confidence, undermined someone's marriage or family relationships. So take care to consider with a bright light if one of the options you are considering can be easily removed from consideration because it is not something you can imagine the Christ who died for you to be doing. 

*reflecting Mark 9:24

Are we important? Are we here for a reason? Are we here for a specific work? Are we here for a purpose?

Some people are born for big moments: Mary the mother of Jesus, Mother Teresa, company owners who provide jobs, not-for-profit CEOs who connect people with a heart for service with places where service is needed, Maya Angelou, Madam Curie, Sandra Day O'Connor and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Some of us are born for moments the free world might not even consider important: being a light in darkness, being attentive to people are often overlooked, giving time to someone who needs to be deeply seen and heard, raising a child, doing an honorable and able job of work, being financially responsible, delivering a meal to someone experiencing a difficult time, tutoring a child, teaching an under-employed person job-skills.

If you've never read the story of Esther in the Bible, I recommend it. And the 14th verse in the 4th Chapter of Esther that includes verse 14 which has been restated in this way:  Perhaps this is the moment for which you were created. Esther risked her very life in a heroic effort to save her people, so hers was a big moment.

So your moment may be huge, terrifying and leading to important changes for a world desperately in need of inspired leaders and musicians and poets and able women (& men) doing work that is readily identified as "important".

Or your moments may be modest as you live Christ into the lives around you. If you are incarcerated you may be exactly who a fellow inmate or CO needs to pray for them. If your child is incarcerated, the tenderness of your heart may be a blessing beyond words to someone else who struggles with private sorrows. If you are ill you may have just the word of comfort or appreciation that an exhausted doctor or nurse or billing clerk longs for to shine light into their lives.

O God of God and Light of Light, show me as I walk through my days on this earth, where I can be Your Hands and Feet, shine Your light, channel Your Love and persistently follow You as You help me make the decisions that enable me to serve where You would send me. Teach me what I need to know. Send good people to light my path, pray for me and cheer me on.  Pour out the Spirit of God into my life. AMEN

​The only thing that never changes in this world is that change is always with us. For very honorable reasons our senior pastor is leaving our church in 5 or 6 months. So we wonder what all that will mean. We have plenty of ministry and mission things going on and each of us has personal concerns about what the changes will mean for our own service and growth and fellowship. For our family it will be the second pastoral change in three years and we still miss our "old pastor" even though we like our current pastor very much indeed.

We mature (or only grow older), our parents age and even die, our children grow up and our grandchildren grow up and our friends move and our jobs change and retirement leaves us busier than working ever did, but requires flexibility and sturdiness of heart and God's plans for us generally include surprises that are, at least initially, unwelcome.

I look around and see folks dealing with changes in health and family structure, financial ups and downs, the tender love with which parents attend their children's challenges and those who are restructuring their lives with a newly empty chair at the table.

This is why the immutable, unchanging nature of God is so dear and precious that it is nearly unbelievable. In fact, it might actually be unbelievable without the Spirit of God helping us conceive of our perfect God being bigger than the broken, mean, lonely, unlovely bits of ourselves that we mistake for our whole selves. 

But in the Bible we read and are comforted and encouraged: "If we are disloyal, God stays faithful because God can’t be anything else than what God is." So, true: God can only be what God is. God is ALWAYS with us, caring about us, caring for us, even when we find we have nothing left with which to care about ourselves. He never gives up on us, though we may turn our back on God no matter the cost. God never changes the game, loses patience with anyone who seeks God no matter the number of times the seeker has fallen short. God does not demand great sacrifices or tributes save this: to keep giving to God all that distresses us, separates us from God and from each other. This giving to God of all that harms us does war with our selfishness and ego and our foot-stomping, willful demand that things be as we want them to be.

So in the coming weeks, when I feel like kicking a can down the street muttering about how I don't want this change, I'm going instead to thank God. I thank God that His love is perfect; His understanding is complete; His power is total and His commitment is unfailingly to the highest good of each of beloved children.
 
OK, I know it sounds silly, but it is no less true and necessary to say: I will thank God that God knows what God is doing; that God is not only "maybe" right in taking us down this path; that God sees where we cannot yet see so already rejoices in how we are being blessed into the future. Unfolding before us in new and exciting ways are good things so we can just keep our hand in His Hand, our eyes on Him, our will open to adjustment that we might conform more tenderly to God's good and perfect Will today and forever and ever. AMEN

*2 Timothy 2:13

I have loved and wrangled and toted and struggled with teenagers. One of the most frustrating parts is coaching them to avoid dangerous people and situations. They feel invincible. They think they know everything and can do anything. Even good kids can be attracted to dangerous actions when running with a wild crowd -- which never made someone safer and life better -- never, ever. Good kids can also be attracted to the idea of helping a friend be safe only to learn that the best of intentions can still lead to very bad outcomes when they don't include older, wiser advisers to consider how best to help.

But as an adult I have played this game myself. I've dated stupid people. I've ignored the danger signs of people who do not have my best interest at heart. I've driven too fast, partied too late and failed to do what I've said I would do. And none of that made me feel more loved or important or worthwhile, but I've been slow to walk away.

And I have not died though I certainly could have because life is fragile, and dying is not the worse thing I have seen come out of foolish choices.

So how do I reconcile my prison ministry activities with St. Paul's advice* to "keep way from every form of evil"?

I'm not active in this ministry so I can win the approval of the folks who are struggling with incarceration and its many ancillary forms of destruction and damage. I'm there to offer an alternative life-view that may not have been discussed with someone before. I'm there to assure folks that they can not run so far, be so broken that God does not love them and long to restore them. Sometimes I get to see someone find hope and healing and rehabilitation as part of a program I'm involved with, but far more often I never know if someone finds it worthwhile or not, either now or in the future. I'm just here to lend a hand, not demand outcomes.

I have no problem welcoming into my church home and my life people who have been incarcerated and are seeking a new way of living. But I don't run the bars with them, both because I believe it is rude and dangerous for folks who are trying to build a new life, but also because it is foolish for me to introduce such an avenue for evil into our friendship. I'm just saying, more folks are finding cocaine in bars than in churches or AA in my experience.

When I am trying to honor the body that God has provided for me and develop healthy habits of eating and exercise, this is not the time to call up all my friends that mock that desire to improve, and set out to visit six BBQ joints in one day.

The evil is not the bar or the BBQ joint. It is the arrogance of not tending and caring for our own well-being. Don't metaphorically slap God in the face by placing yourself at risk. Really if one more person says, "But I'm not responsible because I was drunk" I think I'll scream. Don't get drunk! Don't keep dating crazy people. Don't keep spending more than you have on things that you don't need and that actually cause you pain. Don't dwell on everyone who who ever "done you wrong."  None of that is moving you in the way you want to go if you want a better life. None of that is moving you to love God more deeply or serve God more passionately.

Stop. Pray, Think. Pray. Reconsider. Pray. Act only IF IT IS IN YOUR OWN LONG-TERM BEST INTEREST. Please.

* 1 Thessalonians 5:22

"Oh God, please help me, in this way, in that place by 2:30 the afternoon of the 13th." That sounds silly but I have been guilty of just such prayers too often. So, slowly I learned to lay my concern before God and ask for help. And God so generously and able and lovingly sends me guidance and direction and then I want to argue with God about every little nitpicky part that does not suit my ideas of how things should go.

So St. Paul's advice in 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 struck a cord with me: "don't despise inspired messages, but do test everything -- hold on to what is good." That speaks to my struggles pretty plainly. When God says step out in faith I need to get with the program and not waste time and energy second guessing. But, on the other hand, I am both given permission AND directed to test everything.

How does that work? First of all, God will never tell you to be abusive or steal or murder or slander or embezzle. I believe it is possible for God to call me to civil disobedience when the law of the land contradicts my understanding of God's laws but that is rare and not really the point here. If you are being called to break the Ten Commandments you can be sure you are off track.

Secondly, it is natural to have a "say what???" response to God calling you to step out in faith. But just because you HATE speaking in public does not mean that God will not prod you to ask a question or share an observation in Bible class. Being reluctant is OK as a starting point and asking God to confirm your understanding of where you are being lead is good. I will offer this advice. If you say, "God, if I am truly understanding what You want me to do, please send someone to affirm my understanding." you might want to write down what exactly you asked God to do so that when the person you like least in the world shows up and says they have been praying for you and feel God has given them a Bible verse that might be helpful in your discernment process, you can resist the temptation to say, "Oh, but God, if You wanted to get a message to me I just know you would have NOT have sent that person so I'll just ignore that!" (Yes I've done that foolish thing too!) If you need helping finding your way to do what you believe you are called to do, you are wholly welcome to ask God to help with that too.

And then St. Paul adds, "Hold on to what is good." So often we allow our self-talk and talk within our ministry community to slip into a litany of frustration. And I believe that here St. Paul reminds us to affirm God's commitment to our highest good, lift one another up, say out loud, "God is with us and we will proceed with humility and prayer and confidence in God's power and love." 

Hold on to the good with the help of the Spirit of God so that there is ever less room for the bad we are so inclined to cling to because it is familiar.

When I was young cartoons were far different than they are today. For one thing, like most of television and a large portion of movies and stage productions, the historic use of entertainment to enlighten, inspire and inform was decidedly widespread. So the cartoon illustrated notion of a "voice for goodness/kindness/being well-behaved" in one ear and a "voice for naughty" in the other is one way I think about weighing options.

So when I read St. Paul's advice in 1 Thessalonians 5:19, "Don't quench the spirit," that image is part of the way I think about this. And I have definitely failed to heed this advice more times than I want to consider.

I have argued with myself that something is "not that bad," "really OK because I want it," "won't really hurt any body that much." and other self-justification that eventually actually sets the hairs on the back of my neck to twitching because I know that if I am arguing with myself about doing something I'm probably in full-blown self-denial. Otherwise why am I arguing with myself rather than setting out the the pros and cons in respective columns and counting the cost, both in dollars and opportunity and considering various possible outcomes. Now see, when I think seriously about things I rarely make the whopping, life-shattering, soul-bruising, family-damaging disastrous choices that I am trying to justify with my self-arguing, selfish self. And when I am wise enough to pray through the process and talk with a trusted, mature Christians adviser, well. I don't remember a single time where I was left feeling like a horrible person, which is how I feel when I keep on the self-will-run-riot road to disaster.

I believe St. Paul's advice is really about this: God loves us and longs for us to avoid doing damage to ourselves and those we love. God longs for God's children to embrace the purpose for which they were created and to enjoy their personal highest good. God does not tempt, withhold assistance, or demand a bounty for God's love and forgiveness. God does not play any kind of games with God's beloved and cherished child...that is me and you, my sister.

So I am committed to remembering Paul's wise advice: I will actively seek the guidance and Will of God. I will laugh with well deserved derision when I find myself trying to talk myself into doing something that in my heart of hearts I know is not in my own best interest, however much I may selfishly want it. I will rejoice that God is always lifting me up and offering me wisdom and, even when I slip up and fall down, God is always right where I am, nudging and prodding me back toward my true life, the life for which I was created, my purpose which fulfills me completely.

God of Wisdom, Light and Truth, let me be wise, embrace the light and seek truth in all my relationships: with You firstly and with family of birth and choice, and friends and coworkers, church family and strangers I meet , and each and every and all people with whom I have any sort of connection that I might do good rather than harm, grow in love rather than shrink in hate and trust You completely at all times, in all places and in every circumstance. AMEN

"O, Jesus, thank You for my Christmas presents and thank you for coming as a baby." Few children instructed to pray this would find it difficult. Equally it is easy for us to say, "Thank-you God that we had a safe vacation," especially when we note in the newspaper that another family had a child drown on vacation or an entire family was killed in a car crash coming home from vacation.  Yes, saying, "Thank-you, God" for the things we like about our life is pretty easy for most of us.

But St. Paul advises in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 that we should "In everything give thanks, for this is what God wants from you who are united with the Messiah Yeshua." Now let's start by being clear: Paul is not saying this is how people in the World should behave and this is a good thing because it is plenty hard for those of us who earnestly seek to be followers of Christ.

Thanking God that we can't get pregnant, or that we are when we don't want to be, is irrational to the World and a definite challenge to new Christians and plenty of us old ones. It takes a significant willingness to trust God radically. It takes an utter belief in the rightness of blindly relying on God's trustworthiness when everything seems to be going horribly wrong. It is, frankly, more than making the best of a bad situation, but rather believing in God's ability and willingness to always provide for our highest good in all situations.

This is not anything less than extreme living. Even other Christians may find such an approach incomprehensible. People may accuse us of "not caring" and "being hard" and "being crazy." Such is common for folks who trust God radically at least some of the time. And, if you give this a try, you may find it not only amazing, but easier each time.

So, it is something to at least consider the next time things seem to be going horribly wrong.

I struggle with prayer. I do well with praying my rather extensive prayer list lifting up the people I love and who are part of my life, and I love thanking God for blessings that are abundant from any vantage point my my life. 

But for some reason I do a good job of praying for a while and then I slip into "quick prayers" for "those closest and who have asked for prayer recently" and it just gets less regular from there. Yet I am very aware of St. Paul's advice in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 -- Pray regularly.

Part of it is my changing perspective on prayer. I no longer think of prayer as a wheedling, whining demand that God fix things according to my idea of what would be better. I'm torn because I have no problem laying the deepest longings of my heart before God, Who I believe already knows them better than I do myself. And I believe that God is always committed to the highest good for each and all of God's children. My limited human perspective is always going to be incomplete and may even be so far off base as to be pleading for the exactly WRONG thing from God for the well-being of my loved one. Even when I pray for healing for someone I love, I struggle with the selfish desire to have them healed for MY benefit: because I don't want to loose them from my earthly life, because I don't want to watch people I love deal with the challenges that life on earth without them will bring. 

So this is where I am today: Today I thank God for all the people on my prayer list, and I thank God for the blessings God pours into their lives and the blessing they are in mine. I ask God to woo them and whisper God's Love in their ears and break their hearts only enough to give them hearts of love and power and hope and joy and peace that they might tingle with love of and for God. I ask that God keep me from causing any damage to their spiritual journey and to give me words of mercy and love according to God's Will.

Today I ask God to give me eyes to see and ears to hear so I can discern where and how to can use my hands and feet (and sometimes voice) to reflect God's trustworthiness and power and constancy and love and joy and hope and peace into the lives of folks at the drive through and the gas station and the grocery store and next door and down the street and in my family of birth and family of choice, and work family and church family and community family.

Today I love praising God for all the forgiveness, healing, renewal, rehabilitation, redemption and forgiveness that GOD has poured into my life and continues to pour into my life. I thank God that Christ was Love and Truth and Light to a broken world so I am now free to turn my face to God with hope rather than fear, anticipation rather than trepidation, trust rather than trembling, confidence rather than dis-ease. I thank God that the Spirit of God informs my life in every space where God has helped me pry out selfishness, ego, fear and indifference.

So if you ask me to pray for you I will be so grateful for the opportunity to do so. But I won't be praying to a Vending Machine God who I direct to make things miraculously without challenge; rather I will be thanking God for the healing God has for you, the hope God has for you, the presence of God by your side and I will be lifting you up that you might be filled with the light and love and discernment that is your just inheritance by the blood of Christ through the power of the Spirit of God. 

AMEN

I have a friend who smiles all the time, even when sharing some of the deeply hurtful things that have happened to her. This was a bit disconcerting when I first met her, but I came to see it as the same thing as a scar from surgery that saved a life. Her smile is her shield and she works with great integrity and commitment to keep healing from all the sad stuff she has survived and to honestly embrace gratitude for the blessing she is to her colleagues, friends and family.

So I think of her when I read "Always be joyful" in 1 Thessalonians 5:16. I can't even be happy all the time and that is a much smaller thing than being joyful all the time. So why does St. Paul include this in a list of advice for the early church at Thessalonia?

I think it is the very difference between joy and fun, joyful and happy that gives us a window on this advice. Things for the early church were not so good. The Jewish Christians were struggling to embrace folks who had been considered ritually unclean in their culture for millennia. The Romans were growing ever more anxious about the cult of Jesus followers. The Greeks mostly ranged from curious to condescending. There were no quiet woodland retreats, no employers proclaiming a desire to hire them, no one saying that they were a "privileged class".

So I imagine the "joyful" thing was pretty hard to swallow. But I have a couple of ideas why they were advised to choose "joyful" from the various feelings they could embrace.

First, I think this was a reminder that we desperately need in our current age. How we feel is largely a choice, barring a misfiring brain. Even on bad days we can embrace the blessings pouring over us. If you have trouble conceiving of this, I strongly recommend you read at least the first half of Viktor Frankel's Man's Search for Meaning. He speaks with authority as an eloquent survivor of the Holocaust.

Secondly, I believe we do have many more things to be joyful about than is sometimes easy to hear over the din of pervasive and ubiquitous advertising.  "Be grateful your car is reliable and don't worry about what your neighbors or co-workers think about it" said no Madison Avenue advertising campaign EVER. The most important things, the most joyous things pour over us every day without regard to our lack of attention thereto. But we can chose to be more aware, grow more aware and choose, by God's Grace, to avoid dwelling on and with which does not nourish us.

I'm not saying it is easy: oh my goodness, no! But I am thinking it is a goal worth striving for because it seems to be a gateway to healing and peace and hope .

Often the good advice found in the Bible sounds pretty crazy to us. I don't think that is a new situation. After all, even in the earliest pages of the Old Testament folks were busy ignoring the best advice. Otherwise Noah would have been besieged by neighbors trying to book a room on the Ark.

No, advice in the Bible rarely encourages us to be "sensible" because our "sensible" monitor is seriously skewed. For instance, St. Paul reminds us that those of us who would seek to be followers of Christ are expected to forgo revenge. This does not mean that governments are wrong when they do their human best to maintain order in a criminally disordered world. But is pretty clear that we as individuals are strongly prohibited from personally repaying evil for evil.  

For instance in 1 Thessalonians 5:15 St. Paul writes: See that no one repays evil for evil; on the contrary, always try to do good to each other, indeed, to everyone. This is diametrically differently than most folks, filled with fear, anxiety and uncertainty in this age, in all corners of the world, both calling themselves Christians and proclaiming hatred of Christians actually embrace with any seriousness.  We avoid our neighbor and gossip about them to other neighbors to justify our meanness. We demand perfection from ourselves, our parents, our children, even though not one of us has any hope of achieving it and has, in point of fact, suffered terribly when we have tried to achieve it or tried to force others to achieve it. We be crazy because we keeping doing what we know does not ever work.

So what does Paul say? He not only says "don't expect to control others when they do bad stuff," he THEN adds this absolutely impossible directive: "always try to do good to each other." Like we should take that seriously when people disappoint us, insult us, injure our reputation, our bodies, our finances? But that is just what it says "always try to do good to each other" and it comes right after the do not repay evil for evil part, so he is NOT talking about doing good to each other because we have been well treated.

And then, and this is the really unbelievable part: He adds this: "indeed, to everyone." In other words, we not only must seek to return good for evil within our community of believers, within our neighborhoods or with people "like ourselves" but we must always try to return good indeed, to everyone.

I mean, how can we expect to do any of that? Actually, left to our own abilities, desires and longings, we can not do it -- at least not for very long or very well.

I read a book by a woman who wrote of her personal commitment to forgiving for her own well-being following the murderer of her husband. Frankly the book made me itch. She advocated for forgiveness but there was a snarkiness that not only sounded like she was a superior human being for being committed to do this, but also she made it very clear who she judged to be "bad actors" among her friends and family.

​This is not enough. St. Paul is talking about doing good in the face of evil. If you ever have an opportunity to hear someone speak who has forgiven the murderer of their son or daughter, do it. For us humans, it seems quite impossible, but some folks take their Bible very seriously: they have lived their faith, walked their desire to do good, longed that the death of their child might at least lead to true repentance and redemption for the child of the killer's parents.

And I don't know a single human being who can even begin to do that except with God's help; with the Spirit of God tending, loving, healing, guiding and rebuilding us in a wholly "other worldly" way. 

I hope with all my heart I never have to face this, but I am committed to take my puny little, piddling small and utterly unimportant petty sense of being wronged and stomp on its neck every time it tries to lift its miserable head to take time, energy and resources that I am better off spending to reflect God's love into a world that will never truly understand forgiveness at this level. 

​I have been given a lot of good advice in my life and I'm a bit depressed by how rarely I took notice or, when identifying the value of the advice still failed to act more wisely by applying it. Sometimes I did not identify advice gently given as advice. Sometimes I did not like the source of the advice and let that color my willingness to consider its worth. Sometimes I identified the advice as valuable but either could not figure out how to apply it, or tried to apply it and, when it proved challenging, drifted away from the better path.

The Bible is certainly full of good advice a huge number of people either don't value or don't follow with much success. In truth, I have little success trying to do better for any sustained period when I try to do it on my own. I either charge directly up the steepest face of the mountain or I keep wandering around the base of the mountain looking for the elevator.  The middle ground is just a challenging place for me to live and a moderate and measured approach has always seemed rather dull to me.

So how have I manage to embrace change that has colored my life in such delightful ways? I always need help.

Not family and friends, frankly, who often want to help but are really giving directions based on GPS coordinates that need updating or simply have the wrong software installed for my journey. Not professional people, who have helped me in amazing ways over the years, and for whom I do enthusiastically thank God upon every remembrance, but who, like all of us, have human limitations and their perspective too is colored by their own journey. Not the "popular culture" which seems more tawdry with each passing year. Not the successful evangelist who is both limited by his human nature and besieged with a broad array of temptation so that the church on earth might be damaged in the eyes of the world.

In seeking help, I have had the same experience of which King David wrote in the 121st Psalm: My help comes from the Lord. This does not mean that those of us who seek passionately to follow Christ will be exempt from hurricanes, floods, famine, war, theft, illness, anxiety or even murder. It means that in the midst of all those calamities and any other you can name, in the midst of the days in and days out and years in and years out of our lifetime, in times that feel like blessings and those that don't, God will sustain us, attend our deepest needs, heal our deepest wounds, always hear us, always love us, always lift us up when we stumble and even fall. always light our way.

​Oh, God of 2nd chances, God of rehabilitation and redemption, God of forgiveness and love, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you ........... AMEN

I was watching a Father Brown Mystery last night and when a man cried out to be healed he was immediately taken into God's arms. That was how I felt about my father's passing...not the healing we had long hoped for, but certainly in my father's best interest as all his broken body and wounded spirit were release for God's complete healing.

As I age I have normal thoughts about how I might leave this earth. I've had family members die in accidents and illnesses that take them far sooner that we expected. I've had family members that endure the challenges of moving from household to household as great age robed them of the ability to live independently. I've had family members who seemed to die long before their bodies gave out because they simple chose not to engage in the living of life. And I've had family members who loved and served and gave in amazing ways even as their life ebbed from their mortal body. I understand that in a very concrete sense we are all dying from the day we are born.

So this speaks to me in ways it never could have when I was younger and robust of body and quick of mind:  We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.* I do understand that I have grown in many ways that I appreciate and that allow me to offer comfort and kindness in ways my younger self would have never thought of. And I am grateful that every day God places in my life folks who can benefit from a kind word, a tender connection, a moment when someone attends them.

Holy God, Almighty God, send me work, and confidence that what You send will be accomplished because of my reliance on You, my conviction that I am in over my head, and that I have an utter need to not run off with my own ideas and plans, rather leaning ever more completely on Your Grace and the infinite rightness of Your purpose in placing me here at this time. AMEN

* 2 Corinthians 4:16 

I paused for a moment as I looked out my kitchen window. Few incarcerated folks have much of a view. Some see other prison buildings and asphalt and sky. Some get a glimpse of folks going about in the free world. Some have horticulture programs that bring unexpected color and pleasant landscaping. It is the same from day to day, day in , day out, year in, year out, often even between institutions.

So how can I make use of this window in my world?

I will thank God: for the birds a neighbor feeds faithfully, for grass that does not need cutting in the winter months, for trees whose bare branches remind me of the circle of life and the hope of spring and the evergreens that remind me of the durable nature of life, for the sun and the rain and winter storms each in their turn.

I will ask God to bless the neighbors struggling with illness, family stress, loss and sadness, financial challenges and those who are actively seeking God and and those who are not aware that God is caring for them.

I will praise God for being the same every day: all forgiving, all powerful, all loving, all healing, all joy, always wooing and pursuing us when we are estranged. I will praise God for welcoming us wholly and without reservation when we quit trying to make all the other stuff be enough to meet our needs. I will praise God for persistently hanging on to us through times of confusion, doubt and error that we might escape the temptation to trust anything but God.

I will ask God to teach me to surrender completely to His Will, seek diligently the opportunities he lays before me and accept the unique combination of challenges and blessings He has chosen to allow me to serve God at all times and in all places according to His Design to reflect His love and glory into the world around me.